Thomson

It’s a heck of a way to run a pre-election campaign. On the eve of an expected election, politicians usually spend their time playing up good news, downplaying the bad, shaking hands and kissing babies.

Artists and sculptors, the family-owned, Nisku-based design and construction golf team, which is getting worldwide accolades, has always been visionaries, able to see what others might miss.

“We don’t try and impose any one style on any project,” said Grant Puddicombe, managing director of Puddicombe Golf.

The company includes his brothers Mark, the construction services manager, and Tod, projects co-ordinator, as well as his father, Sid, the president.

“Everything is based on the land and the property we work with. Although we are guided by fundamental principles, we let the site dictate the designs. We try and fit something in with the land as best we can,” Grant said. “Being site-specific allows us to create designs that are sympathetic to the land and allows us to blend our creations seamlessly into the existing landscape. If the land lends itself to being more of a links style, then that’s the direction we go. Everything is driven by the land.”

Building, designing, redesigning or constructing over 100 courses in places like Japan and New Zealand, their local work includes the redevelopment of the Windermere Golf & Country Club and the Petroleum Golf & Country Club and the total package when it comes to RedTail Landing, WhiteTail Crossing and the new Coal Creek near Tofield.

“RedTail was just a farmer’s field,” Grant said of the course that’s a nine-iron shot from the Edmonton International Airport, where the running joke was that the first hole was going to be about two miles long, straight, narrow and have blue flashing lights dotting the terrain.

“We didn’t have much to work with. Everything is created and manufactured.”

A prairie-links style course, WhiteTail is similar in design and appearance to RedTail.

“It was a pretty bland site as well; we had to create just about everything that was out there, as well.”

Then there is Coal Creek — a mix of links, quarry and woodlands — which was built on a coal mine that had to be reclaimed.

“Coal Creek had more natural features which allowed us to create an identity much different than RedTail or WhiteTail,” said Grant.

As with all the courses they’ve designed, the latter trio of Puddicombe-designed courses all began the same way: walking the site, getting a feel for it and waiting for the natural holes to jump out.

“That’s exactly what they do; they just appear,” said Grant. “When you see them, you just instantly know that they are going to be key components of the golf course and we work outside from there. We find the features and work the rest of the holes around the features.”

At RedTail, the one hole which jumped out was No. 11 — a hole they refer to as Oceans 11 because of the big pond in front of the tee box.

At Coal Creek, it was the long, downhill par-3 13th hole that immediately popped out.

For WhiteTail, there were the natural corridors on the front nine, which became holes four, five and six in, and among the native bush, while the natural stream on the back nine produced holes 14 and 15.

“Then it becomes like a big jigsaw puzzle,” said Grant, who, like Mark, followed in the footprints of their father, who has been in the golf business since 1947.

“The natural holes are the starting point and you fit everything else around them.”

While letting the land decide what shape their courses will take, any Puddicombe course will also have six firm trademarks. The first five are: The course must be memorable, be player friendly, have the hazards visible in front of you, don’t take the driver out of a player’s hands, and make the player use all of the clubs in their bag.

The sixth tenet is perhaps their strongest philosophy: Par should be earned and bogey should be easy to achieve.

“It’s a saying that a lot of people have coined, but it’s very true. You need to be tested and have to work for a par while bogey golfers, which most golfers are, should be able to stickhandle around the obstacles and have a fair way of getting there,” said Grant, who has never had a job that wasn’t golf course related.

Originally only a consulting and golf course design business, Puddicombe Golf became what Grant called the “full-meal deal” when they also became a redesign and construction company, as well as being the owners of RedTail and WhiteTail Crossing.

The superintendent of Royal Mayfair for 20 years, Sid said there wasn’t one course that kicked off the company.

“In the beginning, most of the work we were doing was sand to grass green conversion or courses going from nine holes to 18 holes. That’s how the whole thing really got started.

“We were so damn busy at the outset. We had courses like Lac La Biche, Athabasca, Provost, Bonnyville, Two Hills, Smoky Lake and Maclin in Saskatchewan. Then we moved into central Alberta and worked on a new nine holes at Eckville’s Last Hill Golf & Country Club, a new back nine at Pine Hills at Rocky Mountain House, the Red Deer Golf & Country Club, and then Trochu and the Lakewood golf course at Sylvan Lake.

“The majority of our work was working with existing golf courses. To this day, that has still been our forte. New courses have just been a bonus. They definitely weren’t the backbone of the business.”

Instead, Grant said the foundation of Puddicombe Golf remains “solving problems, giving them the most bang for the buck, and then give them some direction in a sustainable way.”

One of the biggest changes in golf course design has been building courses longer and longer.

“A 7,000-yard course used to be long. That’s nothing anymore,” said Sid. “RedTail is 7,300 yards.”

The reason, Sid said, is simple.

“It’s because so many younger golfers hit the ball so damn far. We have to use more and more land. A golf course used to fit on 120 acres. Now we can’t fit a golf course onto a 160-acre chunk of property. Now, we’re over 200 acres and I honestly don’t know where it is going to stop.”

Another big change in golf architecture is typified by what Puddicombe Golf, whose roots date back to 1981, is doing in New Zealand. They are completely tearing down an existing golf course to build a housing development, which is much more valuable for the real estate, and then doing a new project 15 kilometres from the current course.

“I think you are going to see more and more of this,” said Grant. “A lot courses are struggling to make ends meet, yet they are sitting on a gold mine as far as a housing developments are concerned.

“You’ll see it in Edmonton, as well. You’ll see existing courses torn down to build residential but, unlike the project we are doing in New Zealand, new courses won’t be built with the cash they get.

“There are just so many courses in the Edmonton area and they all won’t be able to survive.

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